🚀 go-pugleaf

Before you take any responses as volunteers for e-mail mentoring, be sure to
read what thee FAQ at http://www.mvps.org/access/netiquette.htm has to say
on that subject. The newsgroup is the best mentor that you can find... you
expose your questions to people of varying levels of experience all around
the world. Many questions are answered in minutes after someone sees them,
though it may take the questions and answers longer to make their way
through the Internet to the plethora of news servers.

In regard to #1: It is impossible to say, since we don't know what your
capabilities are, where you are in the process, nor, indeed, what you mean
by "really able to do some serious work". I define "basic developer
competence" as the ability to take a well-crafted set of specifications
(done by someone else) and design and implement a workmanlike Access
application with a usable user interface. It takes a varying amount of time
and effort for different people to reach that point. And, of course, there
could be varying definitions of "workmanlike Access application".

For example:

When I craft what I consider a workmanlike Access application, it will have
at most one macro (AutoKeys, because there's no realistic substitute, if
needed). The reason is that I include error handling and you can't do that
with macros.

On the other hand, a colleague (who is an engineer, not a programmer or
database developer) created for his employer, a large urban school district,
an application used for at least 7 years by the school district's food
service operation (many cafeterias feeding thousands of children each day),
with which they are happy, that has, he says, "not one line of code not
generated by the Wizard". It's hard to argue with success -- the inability
to field and handle errors just hasn't seemed to be a problem there.

And #2, if you'll post the specific questions with sufficient detail and
background, you can get some good answers.

A final word, one of the easiest ways to draw flamers is to say "No flamers
please..." but not have read the newsgroup's FAQ, which in
comp.databases.ms-access is posted daily with a link to the FAQ site which
is chock-full of great technical information as well as a discussion of
netiquette.

"Lonnie" wrote

> I am teaching myself ACCESS and have some basic questions.
> 1.  How long should it take before I'm really able to do some serious work
> in ACCESS?
> 2.  other questions.
> No flamers please............

Kind of one of those how long does a ball a string need to be to reach from
New York to LA.

Answer: As long as it needs to be....

Being a seasoned developer, it took me 6 months. And after that another 6
before I started to "internalized" Access. What I mean by internalized, is
that I could "think" in Access, and come up with solutions that are *really*
appropriate for Access. At first one learns the syntax of the language etc.
After that, one learns what works well, and what to avoid. It is this art
and learning that allows one to really fly with Access. In other words, I
can learn the syntax of all the commands...but that is not enough compared
to "what approach works". After a few stumbles, and looking at where/why
some of my projects dragged on, I finally began to get a handle on
ms-access.

However, the general break down of skill levels for a *GOOD* developer is as
follows:

   Stage 1 Innocent (never heard of the product)

   Stage 2 Aware (Has read an article about X)

   Stage 3 Apprentice (has attended a three-day seminar)

   Stage 4 Practitioner (ready to use X on a real project)

   Stage 5 Journeyman (uses X naturally and automatically in his job)

   Stage 6 Master (has internalized X, knows when to break the rules)


One should NEVER attempt a project with a team consisting with Stage 3 or
lower people. This is a sure fire formula for failure. The team can consist
of 4's, but should have access to 5, or 6 type developers.

--
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
kallal@msn.com

"Albert Kallal" <kallal@msn.com> wrote:

>However, the general break down of skill levels for a *GOOD* developer is as
>follows:

Albert

I've seen several excellent postings of yours.   I'm quite impressed.   

Do make sure you come out to the Edmonton VBAD meetings.   You'll be most welcome.
I'll email you in advance of the next one.

Tony
----
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
   Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can 
read the entire thread of messages.
   Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at 
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

Hi Lonnie

Like you, I am also teaching myself Access. I take it one step at a
time, so far I seem to have got my tables right so now it on to Forms
and Queries.

I have got amazing and detailed response from this ng. Just follow a
few rules and phrase your problems as eloquently as possible. You may
get snapped at sometimes but usually they are pretty forgiving to us
newbies.

Why have one mentor when you can have so many.

(Damm, I love this newsgroup)

Regards

Derek


On Tue, 24 Jul 2001 01:55:22 GMT, "Lonnie"
<lonnie2000@atl.mediaone.net> wrote:

>I am teaching myself ACCESS and have some basic questions.
>1.  How long should it take before I'm really able to do some serious work
>in ACCESS?
>2.  other questions.
>No flamers please............
>--
>*******************************************
>"The World Steps Aside For Any Woman Who Knows Where She's Going....no ways
>tired"
>
>
>

Thank you Albert.  This is excellent information for me.  It is good to hear
from someone who can give me the heads up of the learning process.

--
*******************************************
"The World Steps Aside For Any Woman Who Knows Where She's Going....no ways
tired"

"Albert Kallal" <kallal@msn.com> wrote in message
news:Gvf77.48339$TW.239422@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
> Kind of one of those how long does a ball a string need to be to reach
from
> New York to LA.
>
> Answer: As long as it needs to be....
>
> Being a seasoned developer, it took me 6 months. And after that another 6
> before I started to "internalized" Access. What I mean by internalized, is
> that I could "think" in Access, and come up with solutions that are
*really*
> appropriate for Access. At first one learns the syntax of the language
etc.
> After that, one learns what works well, and what to avoid. It is this art
> and learning that allows one to really fly with Access. In other words, I
> can learn the syntax of all the commands...but that is not enough compared
> to "what approach works". After a few stumbles, and looking at where/why
> some of my projects dragged on, I finally began to get a handle on
> ms-access.
>
> However, the general break down of skill levels for a *GOOD* developer is
as
> follows:
>
>    Stage 1 Innocent (never heard of the product)
>
>    Stage 2 Aware (Has read an article about X)
>
>    Stage 3 Apprentice (has attended a three-day seminar)
>
>    Stage 4 Practitioner (ready to use X on a real project)
>
>    Stage 5 Journeyman (uses X naturally and automatically in his job)
>
>    Stage 6 Master (has internalized X, knows when to break the rules)
>
>
> One should NEVER attempt a project with a team consisting with Stage 3 or
> lower people. This is a sure fire formula for failure. The team can
consist
> of 4's, but should have access to 5, or 6 type developers.
>
> --
> Albert D. Kallal
> Edmonton, Alberta Canada
> kallal@msn.com
>
>